


The Archer

by Breadcrumbz



Series: The Avengers vs. Silent Hill [1]
Category: Silent Hill, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Child Death, Crossover, Gen, Horror, Psychological Horror
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-09-15
Updated: 2013-07-18
Packaged: 2017-11-22 06:22:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/606774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Breadcrumbz/pseuds/Breadcrumbz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Tony Stark goes missing, Clint Barton is sent out on mission to try and find him. In the process, he comes across the town of Silent Hill and nothing could have prepared him for what he found.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

Did you know that, sometimes, being an Avenger is pretty damn weird? Well it is. We battle time-travellers, alien invaders, would-be world conquerors, giant monsters, radioactive science freaks… Uh, no offense to those on the team who may or may not be on that list but that kind of thing is  _weird_. But lemme tell you one thing: of all the messed up shit I’ve seen as an Avenger, there is nothing you can do or say that will make me go into that town again. I’m still trying to come up with a reason why it wasn’t real.

What happened was that Tony Stark went missing. Can’t really remember the details anymore but basically we’d been in contact with Stark as he was on mission, and then we lost all contact with him. All contact. Even JARVIS wasn’t responding, which was confusing as if Tony had just been compromised then JARVIS would still work, right? So someone had to go and look for the expected dead billionaire, even though I was certain Stark had just pissed off on holiday because he’d given up on his mission – it would explain why JARVIS was switched off. It would make sense for him to up and leave in silence, too, as Tony was the one who created the mission in the first place, and he had way too much pride to admit he didn’t want to do it anymore. Anyway. The next thing I knew was that I was asking around secluded villages in Maine for any sign of Tony Stark; Natasha screaming at me through a walkie-talkie (ok, maybe not  _screaming_  but she just kept bossing me around even when  _she wasn’t there_ ) and I eventually ended up on this old foggy road in the middle of the woods. So, anyway, I’ve been instructed by Mr Furious to give an account of what happened – because let’s just say, things got a little out of hand – and so here it is. You’re reading it. Ain’t you a special snowflake?


	2. Chapter 2

“Welcome to Silent Hill…” I read aloud. At least I think that’s what it said, considering the fog was so thick it was like someone had thrown bags of flour into the air. The words were on an old and rusted sign which stood by a just-as-old and worn-out road I’d spent the past hour walking down, as no one would give me a lift. They said the road was closed. Sure it was. Assholes. To be honest, I seriously doubted Tony would even be here as he’d have to walk on his own and the town had obviously been abandoned for years – decades, even – as who in their right mind would let their sign get in such a state? The paint was chipping off and the font was beyond old-fashioned. It said it was some kind of tourist town, and I had a guess as to why it eventually ran out of business:  _all this god damn fog._  
  
With a sigh, I picked up my radio and switched frequencies to S.H.I.E.L.D. HQ as, really, I wanted to stand around in front of some creepy town and have Nat yell at me more, because the search for this pissy billionaire was getting a little old now. “Are you sure Stark’s in here? There’s no way he could get lost in this town for a week – he’d just get bored.” It wasn’t long until I heard Natasha’s static-y (static-y? Is that even a word?) sigh coming from the other end. She so wanted me.  
  
“Yes. Data shows he was last in this area and you’ve already checked the surrounding towns. Stop being a baby and check it out.” I think I was entitled to make a face at that because, really, I am not a baby. It just looked like a complete waste of time. Honestly, that town wasn’t scary I just knew Stark wouldn’t be there.  
  
“Fine, ‘Tasha. This’ll probably take a day or so – I’ll radio-in in a few hours if I don’t walk into something and knock myself out in all this damn fog.” I didn’t get a reply which, if I’m kinda honest, upset me a little. I didn’t want to wander around a town where the air was so musty is would stick to the back of your throat. There’s no way Tony would stay here that long because he’d complain about the smell of brick-dust and, well, I suppose it was a little creepy spending a lot of time in an abandoned town. Obviously I wasn’t frightened, it’s just that when you’ve seen as many films as I have that are set in towns like this, you start to associate them with zombie apocalypses.  
  
Of course, everyone knows zombies aren’t real – if they were we’d have fought them already – but becoming part of the walking dead isn’t high on my to-do list. I let out a long sigh and started to wade through the fog into the creepy town, as if I stood still much longer Natasha would find out and would imply I was frightened. I swear I wasn’t, I just didn’t feel like wasting two days of my life in a dull and lifeless town. If Stark was in there I would not be in the mood for any of his pissy bullshit.  
  
It hadn’t taken long to reach a junction in the city centre and by this time I felt ridiculous for saying that this town was creepy. Really, when I said it was creepy, I meant that it was  _fucking_ creepy. The sound of my footsteps would echo off the walls in such a way that it sounded exactly like someone was behind me. Obviously there wasn’t as when I stopped, so did the footsteps and there was no breathing. No noise. Nothing. Just fog and more fog and more fog. I didn’t turn around to check, I knew nothing was there, but everyone knows that when you check to see if something’s behind you in a zombie town that they got you. That was the exact moment they got you. I wasn’t going to let them get me.  
  
This town was playing tricks on me. I hadn’t realised that so much fog could make you draw your bow constantly (I’d taken to carrying it around in my hands, I was that jumpy). Honestly, I actually defended myself against a fire hydrant. It had threatened to spray me with water – of course I had to protect myself. It’s not like I thought it was a person covered in blood or anything. It was at this point, when I was stood deciding whether to go left into constant fog or right into constant fog, that I decided it would be best to get myself a map, otherwise I’d just get lost. I radio’d into headquarters to request a satellite scan and had to wait for them to process it. The waiting was probably the worst part as there I was, stood in a four-way junction with zero visibility. I haven’t told many people this but, naturally, I’m about 80% deaf so losing my most valuable gift of sight was starting to get to me. I wouldn’t be able to hear people sneaking up on me if it wasn’t for these hearing aids that Stark had designed. That was fitting, I thought. Don’t think people would agree with me though. It had probably only been two minutes and I’d already resorted to checking over my shoulders (yeah I know I said not to do that, but being a sitting duck was worse) and pacing a little when I heard a loud, crackle of static.  
  
Jesus, I dropped the radio when I heard it, the casing clicking on the tarmac. Shit. I fumbled to pick it up again, praying it wasn’t broken.  
  
“…sorry…fog…unable……location…back to you…”  
  
Then the static stopped and the radio fell silent.  
  
Hah.  
  
That was pretty fitting too. ‘Silent’. As in the name of the town. This place was definitely silent and I’d now broken my radio. Great. This was just great. Well, Stark could wait for a moment – I needed to find myself a map if I was going to do a full sweep of this town. It was at that moment I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. I turned, grabbed an arrow and readied my bow – keeping my back straight and taking calming breaths to stay focused and dear god, I hoped it wasn’t another fire hydrant. I hoped it was Tony so I could get the hell out of here, but the movement was fast and—  
  
It was a piece of paper. Exhaling, I shook my head and allowed the tension to leave me. Look at me. The World’s Greatest Marksman losing my cool over a piece of paper. I put the arrow back into my quiver and looked at the signpost above my head, even if I had to squint to make out the letters. In the end, I went right because that lead away from the sound of Toluca lake and I figured there would be a tourist information store in the middle of town. It was a tourist resort, after all. I still don’t get why anyone would go there for a vacation.  
  
When I said the town was silent, I really wasn’t kidding. There wasn’t a single living thing there besides me – not even animals and that worried me. I’d been to abandoned towns before, I’d lived in places more run-down than this, and there were always animals. Rats. Birds. The odd dog. But there? It was like everything abandoned it in fear.  
  
I wanted to abandon it in fear, but I had a mission. I couldn’t stop because I was freaking myself out. Thankfully, it did turn out to be the town centre and there was a huge map on the wall, but all the hand maps had been soaked from the rain. I didn’t get that. They were still soaking but the air was so dry (how can dry air have fog in it?) that it was starting to hurt my throat, so you’d expect them to have dried out by now. Either way, the outside ones were ruined and the large map was covered in grime so it was pretty useless past telling me that this town was much larger than it first appeared. If this took more than two days, I might have to call in reinforcements. Even if it was just for the company, as I didn’t want to accidentally shoot Tony for being the first living thing here.  
  
Figuring there would probably be some maps in the building, and guessing that no one really cared if I broke in, I kicked the front door down (the wood was rotten but it was still pretty badass) and started to rifle around the mess on the floor. That was confusing too. Some of the stores were boarded up, but after a quick look through the windows I could see that they were just as messy. The streets were too. Piles of crumbling bricks and torn up pieces of paper. It was like something had come along and destroyed everything. Maybe it had and that was why everyone had left. I don’t know. The thought was freaking me out so I concentrated on finding a map - which was eventually found inside a magazine and yes, this town was huge - and then figured that I couldn’t be alone in this town.  
  
It just didn’t make any sense. I kept having this feeling that I was being watched but how could anything see me through all this fog? If I couldn’t see it, then it couldn’t see me, right? Well, if it had some high-tech Stark scanning technology then maybe it could see me. Stark wouldn’t play a prank on me, would he? He’s not sick enough to do that as I drew my bow at a  _piece of paper_. I would call out to see if he was around, however everyone knows not to give your position away. Plus zombies are drawn to loud noises.  
  
Ah _shit_. The door made a loud noise when I broke it. I quickly made my way out of the building, prepared to draw my bow at anything which might want to eat my brains, but there was nothing there. Really, I did not like this place one bit and how long had I even been there for? I checked my watch and, honest to god, nearly freaked when it read 3PM. I’d been in there for three hours now. That was impossible. I wasn’t walking slowly, even with the occasional heart-attack over nothing, and it hadn’t taken long to get into town.  
  
This town made no fucking sense. Well, it had been a few hours and I did tell Nat I would radio-in, I just prayed that the radio wasn’t as broken as it appeared to be. Maybe the speaker was simply broken so I couldn’t hear her reply but could still transmit something. It was worth a try either way as I needed to know if my radio worked. If it didn’t, that really wasn’t good if this place did turn out to be a zombie-infested town. There’d be no way of signalling backup. Switching the radio on, my stomach sank when I didn’t hear the usual screech telling me it would send signals. It was only letting out a violent static and I was afraid it was going to blow up at any moment due to a bad connection between two wires.  
  
I still needed to try, though…  
  
“Hey Nat, just signalling in to say there’s no sign of Stark so far and, by the looks of it, the radio’s totalled so I won’t get your reply. Haven’t encountered a single thing and for god’s sake this is completely pointless.” I sighed into the busted radio. My voice was alarmingly loud as it rang out through the town - it was probably the only sound for miles - and there was no way Natasha was getting any of it. That was when I got a reply. The sound was laced with static and I nearly dropped the radio again when it flared into life; I knew one thing even with all the static: there was no way that  _wailing_  was human. Maybe I started to hyperventilate a little through my panic and my attempts to turn the radio off.  
  
 _But it wasn’t turning off, jesus, my radio was **possessed**_.  
  
The only logical solution in that situation was to get the hell out of there before a zombie horde was attracted to the area. I dropped the radio on the ground - no way was I taking it with me - and flipped through the map as quickly as I could (paper cuts be damned) to find the fastest route out of there. There was no way Tony would be there if his technology was malfunctioning like mine was, as Tony wasn’t stupid. He knew he needed his tech. Imagining a possessed JARVIS was terrifying.  
  
Well, luckily there was a highway nearby that led out of town so I sure as hell didn’t stick around and, after shoving the map into my jacket pocket, I walked (ok, so I was running but you don’t understand how badly I was freaking out in there. You would do the same. I just wanted to leave) down a road to my right. I was in that much of a rush that I tripped over my own feet half a mile down it, landing face-first on the dusty ground with a painful blow to my ribs. Sure knocked the wind out of me and only made me panic more. I couldn’t believe I’d fallen over. Me. An ex-carnie. Tripping over myself. I don’t think I’d been that scared since—  
  
And the panic was at an all-time high because it was just then that I realised I was looking down into a bottomless chasm and, if I hadn’t fallen over like an idiot, I probably would have run straight into it due to all the fog and, jesus, how deep did it go? There was no bottom to it that I could see and what looked like a massive tree had fallen into it without reaching the top. Dear god, it was like looking down at the ground through a bunch of clouds; the road had just collapsed entirely. There was no way past it and I just laid on the ground staring into it, wondering how on Earth that could have happened. It was like a mine had caved-in, but what I wanted to know was why anyone would build a town on top of a mine. Or mine under a town, even. I don’t know. Maybe this was why people had left the town? How was this a tourist town again?  
  
Managing to pull myself up, and ignoring the pain in my chest whilst doing so, I dusted my uniform down and hoped the rest of the town wouldn’t end up like that road. Upon thinking that, a metal dustbin in a nearby alley fell over with such a loud clash that, once again, I jumped out of my skin and drew my bow. Seriously, if this was another road collapsing in on itself due to an aftershock I would be in trouble.  
  
Oh, wait. The ground wasn’t shaking. Shit. Please don’t be something scary.  
  
I readied an arrow, went to investigate and, when I saw a scruffy brown mutt just sniffing at rubbish, I couldn’t help but let out a breath of relief that I didn’t know I was holding in until then. It was just a dog. The worst thing that would happen is that I’d get rabies or something, but I’d had all my jabs so it was fine. I’d be fine. Heck, the mutt reminded me of my dear pizza dog, Lucky, so it made me smile a little. Around then, I wondered if Kate had been feeding him whilst I was out on mission. I lowered my bow and went to find another way out of town when it turned to look at me.  
  
Jesus fucking christ I felt like I was going to throw up what the fucking hell happened to it? Immediately, I drew my bow again and started to shake my head because what the  _fuck?_  It was… It’s fucking  _face_  had been ripped off, showing the sore inflamed mangle of red muscle which surrounded teeth that had stained black from all the rot. But that wasn’t just it, someone had attempted to patch it up. Rather crudely if you ask me. It… It was…

 _It was with a piece of - what the fuck - a piece of porcelain._  They’d fixed it into place with - fuck - with barbed wire. I’m not sure if I did throw up or not, I probably did, and it was missing an eye just like pizza dog. There was no way this was pizza dog though. I didn’t even know if it was a dog. It was at that point I noticed its legs - christ - the bone was sticking out of a jagged wound from its second…first joint? I don’t know dog anatomy but I wondered how I didn’t notice that before, because that looked painful, and how did it even stand upright?  
  
Then it… made a noise and took a step forward. The noise it made, it wasn’t a bark, was unlike any sound I’d heard in my entire life and I’d heard an awful lot of noises before my ears were fucked up. I could hear this noise fine though. I’m not even sure how I would describe it, but it was like a guttural snarling that crackled like a firework when it left its mouth. The weirdest and craziest thing about it was that it wasn’t a constant noise like you’d expect, no, it would reach maximum volume and then suddenly stop, skipping back to the start like a broken record.  
  
There was no fucking way that was a dog. When it took a few steps forward, making that horrific sound, there was also no fucking way my arrow was staying in my hands either. It hit the ground with a thud and I didn’t let go of my bow because it was the only thing stopping my hand from shaking. The temptation to put another arrow in it was strong but, dear god, whatever it was I just hoped that it was dead. Maybe the fog had been messing with my eyes, as  _nothing_  could look that bad but, even if it didn’t look like that, I knew I definitely heard that noise. Stark’s tech didn’t malfunction - everyone knew that - so my hearing aids were fine. Plus, my yell of ‘what the fuck’ still sounded like me. God, it was as if I could still hear that noise - that’s how messed up it had been.  
  
Wait.  
  
I  _could_  still hear it. Where was it coming from? The thing in front of me had to be dead - the arrow went right between its eyes and out the back of its head. My heart was hammering as I quickly scanned the fog for any movement but I couldn’t see anything. I couldn’t  _see._  Jesus, I shouted when I finally made out some shadows through the fog at the end of the alley and really? It had a pack? Oh great, there were zombie dogs out to get me and there was no way you could outrun dogs. Everyone fucking knows a human can’t outrun dogs. Even dogs with bones sticking out of their legs oh what the fucking hell was going on.  
  
I did not want to get bitten and turn into a zombie as that did not sound fun. I had to think. I could kill them if I had to but I didn’t want to waste arrows like that if there were these things here and, hey, there was still the chance of getting bitten. That’s the thing about the bow and arrow. There was no way in hell I would miss, I never miss - even in a fog like this - but it would take time to set up aim on a moving target like that and why was I stood there thinking about that? These things were running towards me. Shaking my head free of thoughts, I looked around for any doors I could slip into.  
  
None. Great. They probably would have been boarded up or locked anyway but I did notice a fire-escape ladder leading up to a metal balcony. You have no idea how thankful I was that dogs couldn’t climb or that I was raised by carnies. I used to be ashamed of that, but no-one but a carnie acrobat would be able to make the jump for the ladder and then lift themselves up. Just in time, too, as those dogs had knocked over the dustbins. I sat there for a while collecting my thoughts together as there was no way in hell these things existed and yet, when I looked down, they were right there. Of course they would be there. I don’t know dog anatomy but I do know a thing or two about dogs and they’d all sit and wait for me to climb down from there. Damn creatures. I’d have to use my arrows if I wanted to leave - there was a window but it was likely to be locked. I was stuck up there. Completely stuck.  
  
…What was I thinking? It was made of glass - I could just break in if I had to. See? That was how much my thoughts had been scrambled if I, Hawkeye, master of breaking into places, didn’t know you could smash a glass window in an abandoned town. When I opened the window (it wasn’t even locked) I came face-to-face with the murkiest air I had ever had the unpleasant privilege of breathing in. It was staler than the air outside and trust me, that was pretty stale.   
  
OK. The town really had been abandoned for years and it was likely to do with these zombie dogs. Speaking of zombie dogs, when I opened the window the pack had run off and… that dead one wasn’t there anymore. Really, I didn’t want to know where it had gone as I didn’t want to think about how a zombie could move once its brain had been damaged. You always went for the zombie’s head to kill it. There was no way I was climbing down there, even if they had apparently left, because dogs didn’t run off. I’d watched enough nature programmes back at Stark Tower to know that.  
  
That thought didn’t sit well with me. Would I ever get to see Stark Tower again? I could get out of this town, sure, but without being able to call transport those dogs could easily follow me back and, if I didn’t find Stark - wherever the hell he was - there was a high chance the tower would be bought by some other company and I’d have to go back to living in S.H.I.E.L.D housing. It honestly was as bad as it sounded.

Right. It was time to see if there was another way out from there.


	3. Chapter 3

So I’d just escaped the creepy zombie dogs and entered the creepy old musty house. If you don’t believe me when I say it’s creepy, well, imagine this: the room is so dark I have to use a flashlight, and this is due to the windows being ashed-up. Ash. How did ash even get here? From that mine that collapsed earlier? I was in desperate need of some answers at this point because, seriously, what had happened here? How does a ghost town even form? I don’t honestly know but the first thing to enter everyone’s mind when you think about the formation of a ghost town is something horrible. Massacre. Plague. Monsters. The last one is always in movies, but could you blame me for considering it?

The room I entered - a kitchen, if the rusty stove and crumbling wall tiles gave anything away - had been painted a pale blue colour some time ago. I use the term ‘had’ because pretty much all the paint had peeled off by this point due to a build-up of mildew or something. Some of it looked like it had manually been peeled off, however. Violently peeled off. It made me wonder if someone had been living here whilst the walls began to rot. Must have been a depressing life to let your walls rot like that. Just watching your life rot before your eyes and accepting that fact. I had half a mind to close the window behind me but, if I learnt one thing from watching Zombieland, it was survival rules and this was an example of rule number twenty two: ‘When In Doubt, Know Your Way out’. Ok. I haven’t watched that film too many times I swear and, well, maybe I was taught survival skills from S.H.I.E.L.D training and the carnie, but I preferred to imagine myself on the set of a zombie film because it made this whole thing less weird (despite not having a buddy, so I was failing rule number twenty nine already unless you counted my bow). I would get out of the town and see Stark grinning his ass off before revealing that this was all an elaborate prank which he caught on camera.

I decided to test my theory with the hidden cameras because monsters couldn’t exist. Aliens existed - New York proved that. God’s did. Men who turned into radioactive monsters... Ok so maybe a town had been wiped out by zombies. Anyway to test my theory, I started to search the kitchen for cameras but there weren't any. But to be fair I couldn’t see jack with the lack of lighting and Stark could easily conceal them so I didn’t lose hope just yet. Either way, I needed to find Stark and get out of town, and that wasn’t going to happen if I stayed put and waited for the road to collapse in. I figured I should exit through the other side of the building in order to slip past the dogs. They could probably smell me, though. I did an awful lot of running, and it was likely I was the only living thing nearby, but I figured I could trick them with some meat if I ended up getting corner so I went looking for some. 

That was definitely one of my less-intelligent moves. I’d told myself over and over again that the town must have been abandoned for years, so of course there wouldn’t be any food. When I opened the fridge to check, I got a nose-full of sour black rot which was covering the shelves inside. I stood there watching this thick black gunk ooze down onto the floor, hitting my boots in the process. The stuff was thick and, well, the only word I could think of was chunky - not like smooth slime you’d imagine. Bits would clump together as something, whatever it was in there, began rotting away. I clamped a hand over my nose and mouth because the smell was that rancid and, if I wasn’t careful with it, I would definitely end up with some kind of disease. Smart move getting it on me. The water in the faucet was bound to be even more dangerous (if it even worked) so I had to leave it there as what else could I do? It wasn’t corrosive - all I had to do was leave it alone and not touch it. 

The best move would be to leave the kitchen alone before I did something else stupid as, if I got a serious infection out here, then what could I do? I had no radio for Christ’s sake. I could feel my heart rate pitch slightly at the thought, which was completely stupid. I’ve been in situations worse than this over the years, but back then someone was always there. Villains, teammates, civilians. There was nothing this time. It made my skin tighten. I ended up clamping a hand tight against my nose again due to the blubbery stench filling the air of the livingroom. The whole house stank of decay. Oh, but it wasn’t just rotting paint: there was the unforgettable smell of rotting flesh. Now, I’m pretty sure Tony hadn’t gotten his hands on putres- (Putrestin? Putristine? Putrescine? Something. It’s the chemical which causes the smell dead bodies give off when they rot - at least that’s what Stark had said when his whole lab stank of death a while back and I believed him as it was fucking creepy imagining him as a serial killer but now I’m not too sure) so this had to be the real thing and, well, I wasn’t exactly comfortable with that. Regardless of how many dead bodies you encounter - unless you’re Tasha - the smell still gets to you. It digs itself under your skin and stays there no matter how many hours you spend scouring away the stench.

Part of me wanted to check out the smell, but deep down I did not want to know. The town was abandoned - no one needed to know about a body and I just wanted to leave, really, because images of zombies crawled back into my mind. What if the ooze was what caused those zombie dogs? If it was the cause... I felt myself pale a little and the urge to get out became more dire. Quickly, I made my way to the front door of the apartment. There wasn’t any meat in the kitchen to distract the dogs with, so all there was left to do was walk out and lea--

It was locked.

Of course it was locked.

Right then. Either there was a key in the house or the person locked the door on their way out and was long gone. I should have figured this would happen. I wanted to leave the creepy death house, so of course I’d get trapped in there. I decided to check the livingroom first as it didn’t smell so bad in there compared to the hallway. Maybe I could find a working radio somewhere that I could use to send an SOS signal to some nearby radio station. S.H.I.E.L.D. would be monitoring all the nearby ones in case anything bad happened: like your radio freaking out and being attacked by zombie dogs and escaping into an apartment which smelt like a corpse. Yeah. This was going to be hard to explain back at headquarters - I bet you’re reading this and thinking I’m just making shit up but I’m not I swear to god I’m not.

To prove I’m not, I’ll even tell you that I tried to turn the TV on. I was in a place like this and I tried to turn the TV on to check the news because maybe, just maybe, someone knew about this town and could explain what was going on. I told you I wasn’t making this up as that’s exactly what I would do in that situation - try to get some more normalcy back into the world. I even got disappointed when it didn’t work and, really, I was glad it didn't give me snow like my radio had. The sound of static was starting to make me uneasy after that incident in the fog. After that I managed to find some local newspaper articles on a coffee table. They’d yellowed a bit due to age, but I figured they could tell me something about what happened here. 

As I read the article on the front page, I felt my blood go cold. The headline read: “BOY, 8, KILLS SELF IN SCHOOL BATHROOM”

I nearly saw red and wanted to throw that TV out of the window. An eight year old. He was eight years old. How in god's name does an eight year old get the desire to kill himself? And what kind of school even allows that to happen? They should have seen the signs. They should have noticed the kid was sad as kids that young? They don't really know how to lie. They can’t hide something like suicidal thoughts from someone unless they're a spy, but I'm pretty certain Ray Knotts was not a spy. 

He didn't get to be anything now.

The newspaper was written fifty years ago, so the kid would have been approaching retirement. Maybe he would have been a doctor or an astronaut. Maybe he would have been married with grandkids. In my grief, I needed to know why the kid wanted to die. The rest of the paper had been ripped off in the same mad fury which was present in the wallpaper, so I couldn't find out that way. It wasn't morbid curiosity or anything like that, but I had to know what was so horrible he wanted it to end and whether or not someone could have stopped it. 

But I was in a ghost town and, maybe, I should leave the dead be. I'd already had enough zombies after me - I’d prefer it if another didn’t come after me. Either way, I took the newspaper with me just in case anything came up again about Ray Knotts. The name seemed almost familiar to me, in a weird kind of way, which didn’t surprise me considering the strange things already going on. The livingroom ended up being keyless and so I had to, grudgingly, check the other rooms. I had a quick glance in the bathroom, but there was too much rot in there to merit searching as, really, who would leave their front door key in the bathroom? If I had seen keys in the kitchen, I would have picked them up so there was only the bedroom left.

I could tell upon opening the door that this was the room with the dead body, because the smell was so rancid it made my eyes water. The thing was, I wasn’t prepared for the body to be that of a child hanging limp and heavy from the ceiling - a thick rope clasped tight around her mangled neck. “...Shit.” I cursed under my breath, placing my head against the door and closing my eyes tight in order to get ahold of my building anger. What was with the children here killing themselves? And where were their parents? Dead? I took a deep breath, choking slightly on the putrid smell, before searching the room - avoiding looking at the child because, really, I only got angrier the longer I looked at her.

I slammed shut a drawer with a sigh. There was still no key, but I had a horrible hunch where the key would be... Looking over my shoulder at the child again - god, she was covered in that black mold - I could make out some pockets on her dress. My stomach clenched. I’m not normally a queasy person, believe me - I eat all kinds of garbage, but just looking at her made me ill. I made my way over to her, getting spare pair of gloves out of my bag to change into afterwards. Reluctantly, I started to dig through her pockets, the texture of the mold thick and greasy, before finding what I only assumed was a key. The rot clung to the metal and, as I stepped back from her, I could faintly hear a dripping noise in the back corner of the room. One drop at a time as it hit a solid concrete surface.

How can I even describe the feeling of dread? Scientifically, you’re going into the fight-or-flight response so your pupils dilate and your heart rate increases so much you can only hear the rush of blood through your ears. But mentally? Fear’s hard to put your finger on. Some people flee, others find strength in it and push on, but me? Well, I get frustrated with it, as when your hands shake firing a bow is just that much harder. I shook my head before slowly checking over my shoulder.

Now things were getting weirder. Blood. I knew it was going to be blood. It wasn’t dripping from the walls like in all those cliché horror movies me and Kate watch, no, it-- well, it was dripping from the floor to the ceiling. Upwards. I didn’t want to understand how that happened - I wasn’t curious about everything like Stark - so I just took my key and left the room because that right there was unnatural. I used my map to figure out the nearest exit, if the road hadn’t collapsed in on itself, before I went out to try and avoid the dogs. It almost reminded me of my childhood, sneaking past dogs. In the carnie, I was always avoiding guard dogs. The thought made me ill but I had to press on.

Outside was as foggy as always, but thankfully free of any... whatever noise those dogs made. I couldn’t see anything beyond a meter ahead of me so the silence was the only thing I could go on. Having to rely on my hearing, my crappy hearing, was the worst but you do what you have to in order to survive, right? I took a left and started walking, my bow drawn in case anything decided to sneak up on me. Yet again, the only thing I could hear was my footsteps and that unearthly sensation of being watched crept in. I could feel sweat forming on my brow as my eyes darted to every shadow and every alley I passed.

It figures that actual movement would catch me completely off-guard. I hadn’t heard footsteps, but a body ran past me and I fired my bow in shock, missing the figure as they kept heading down the street. My initial thought was of a monster and then perhaps Tony, as I realised the shape was humanoid. A monster would be expected at this point, but of course the town always did the unexpected, didn’t it?

...It was Barney. Barney Barton. I blinked a few times but he was still there, my brother, running with a smile plastered on his face as he disappeared into the thick fog ahead of me. There was no way it was him, this was obviously a trap, and yet my feet began to move after him with desperation because it was Barney.

“WAIT!” I shouted stupidly, of course he wouldn’t wait! He shouldn’t even be here! My footsteps bounced off the walls of the alleyway I followed him down, then a left and a quick right - was he trying to lose me? Emerging from the cover of the buildings, I found myself at a crossroads. There was no sign of him, not with all the fog, and I suddenly felt extremely exposed. I couldn’t see anything so surely nothing could see me. It was a ridiculous fear but, by following him, I lost track of where I was and that didn’t bode well. I quickly decided to backtrack through the alleyway but, as the thought crossed my mind, I heard the metal scrape of a gate being slammed shut behind me and I could make out flashing red and blue lights in front of me. They were approaching at some speed. Diving out of the way onto the ground, I managed to dodge a police cruiser which came to a halt in front of me. The engine wasn’t running, yet the lights were still flashing and... and there was no one in the dilapidated car.

At that point, I started to back off. Anywhere away from here would be good and I could find a signpost and then decide on another way out. That was when a loud, monotonous metallic screech began playing from the cruiser’s speakers in a continuous drone. The noise was deafening, really, and I scrambled to turn off my hearing aids but the pain was too much and I was already worked-up. It was worse than nails ripping down a chalkboard and the pain...

I think I fainted from the pain. 

The next thing I was aware of was laying on a rusting, metal grate, staring at my reflection in a moldy and just as rusting mirror. A metallic smell filled my lungs and the taste of copper was on my tongue, so I put my hand to my head to check for a cut or something as I assumed that I must be tasting dry blood. My head wasn’t injured - the floor was literally that rusty. At least I hoped it was rust. For all I knew from the dim lighting it could have been dried blood. Shakily, I managed to get onto my feet and had a look around the room. Or, really, looked at myself sweaty and exhausted from every angle. The room was a room of mirrors, see? And there was a metal armoire to one side, covered in rust as well, yet I remembered the room from somewhere. I think it was a long time ago, back at the circus.

There was an assortment of items on the desk: lipstick, powder, a hat, a hairbrush. The latter I picked up because it was familiar, only for a violent shrieking to begin. I dropped the silver hairbrush, the horsehair bristles kicking up a cloud of dust as it landed, and clamped my hands over my ears, this time successfully turning off the hearing aids. It was a pointless move because the sound continued as prominent as before, like I could hear it in my head. The sound caused the mirrors to vibrate and shatter and I dove down into the middle of the room out of the way of the shards, clamping my eyes shut as my fingers dug into my scalp from the pain. It just kept going and going and how could I get it out of my head? How could I make it stop? It needed to stop. I place my forehead firmly against the ground, hoping the cold metal would find me relief but it was no use - I just had to wait it out in agony. Eventually the shrieking, or screaming - whatever it was, stopped and I opened my eyes to look around.

It wasn’t the room of mirrors any more. I was in the middle of a red spotlight, everything outside of the circle bathed in complete darkness making the room seem completely endless and I was so very small in comparison. The light was as intense as a search spotlight you’d get alongside a prison wall, and the feeling of exposure when you were in it was the same. Not wanting to feel like a sitting duck, I took out my bow and readied an arrow only for the arrow to melt into that foul black ooze from before. What happened to my arrows?! I looked around again, only for lights in the distance to turn on and illuminate an... audience? No, it couldn’t have been. They didn’t look like people - only distorted rags soaked with red from whatever they were wrapped around. They each had a face painted on what I assumed was their head, a demented and proud smile which didn’t look the slightest bit happy, and that’s when it hit me. This was a circus ring and I was stood in the middle of it with an audience which didn’t have souls.

A door slammed to my left and in came clowns riding on unicycles. Ugh, I always hated clowns - they were creepy - but these didn’t have the foolish face of a clown painted on them. The face paint was savage and brutal, like they’d murdered someone viciously with a steel pipe, and razor-sharp teeth framed clearly behind lips which had permanently curled back. I tried to follow them as they circled around me, but then the shrieking started again and I had to close my eyes. 

I wish I hadn’t reopened them. The clowns became even more disfigured - they were severed from the waist down, and their body was replaced by the rusted unicycle they’d been riding on. They could still peddle without legs, though, as they used their arms but that didn’t explain how they were still able to move with all that flesh. I could hardly see the unicycle because it was like the clown had started to grow around it. But that wasn’t the worst part - that honor went to their necks. These were replaced by a large spring, like the type you get in a slinky, so they looked like a Jack-in-the-box minus the box. Only these Jack-in-the-boxes had fangs which dripped black ichor down their neck and onto their bodies. I’ve never seen anything so disturbing in my whole life, so of course when one of those heads lunged out to bite me I jumped out of the way and decide to make a run for it through the darkened ground.

Only there wasn’t any ground beyond that red circle - the clowns had been riding on nothing - and I fell down and down and down. I couldn’t be certain how long for because I couldn’t see anything, couldn’t feel anything but wind rushing by me, until I landed suddenly on the ground. A spotlight revealed the ground to be a... target? I saw the dagger catch the light as it was thrown towards me and I ignored the pain in my arm and dodged it, only for a clown to throw more of them at me and each of them to bore deep into the painted wood. Before I even come up with a plan to get off of the target, the next dagger flies straight for my head and I instinctively duck, the blade digging firmly into the centre of the bull’s-eye. That caused my mind to go blank, as, really, there was too much information to take in – I’d nearly died! - and the adrenaline was just telling me to flee but I couldn’t. The floor was moving, the light was blinding my eyes and there was the loud scrape of rusty metal against rusty metal, there was so much noise and the floor was moving out from under me.

I choked on the metallic taste of water as I fell in, sinking in the murky fluid. Bubbles began to fill the water and I realised it was being drained, so I tried to swim in the opposite direction but the pull of the drain was too much and I got caught against the grate at the bottom of the tank as the water finally emptied around me. Taking in a thankful lung of air, I coughed up as much water as I could before managing to sit up and look around to find out how to get out of here. 

I... I was in a bathroom.


End file.
